Apparently, Filipino spaghetti sauce is sweeter than Italian style. Whatever it is, the cheese sausages were a nice addition.

Yes yes, I’m not blue-chip all the time but a quick and easy home cooked meal is better than none.

That’s because wife said to help her draw up a bunch of healthy recipes that are quick and easy to make for weekday afterwork dinners.

So a good stock is in order since it could form the base of so many quick and yummy dishes.  So, just start with:

Ingredients:
2 medium-large onions, roughly cubed
2 medium-large carrots, roughly cubed
3 stalks of celery, roughly cubed
1 whole bulb of garlic, skins removed
1 bay leaf
A few black peppercorns

Roughly hack the vegetables into little cubes, just make sure you washed them thoroughly before.  This is so increase the surface area so we can extract all the nutrients and flavor as fast as possible.  I wasn’t about to spend 4 to 6 hours on Sunday night making stock when I have to work the next day.   A quick tip about the garlic – to remove the skins fast, just cut off the top and bottom of the bulb then flatten the cloves with your knife.  Then pick out the garlic cloves from the resulting rubble of skins.

Put everything in a pot with enough water to cover the vegetables then bring to boil.  Once it starts to bubble, reduce the heat to a gentle simmer.  Cover with a lid and set your kitchen timer to about one hour.  No salt as I prefer full control when I use the stock for actual dishes.

Go watch a bit of TV or something.

An hour later, strain all the vegetables and solids and throw them away.  You can eat the carrots if you want but the rest are quite inedible by itself.  You should have a stock that is a little cloudy with not much color but with a light and fragrant aroma.  You’re done.

There are many ways to keep the stock for future use but just bear in mind that bacteria fester best at temperatures between 5 and 60 degrees celsius so you’ll definitely want to minimize the stock’s exposure to this temperature range.  What I did was to reduce the stock down after removing the vegetables until the volume is reduced to about 1/3 of the original then it’s kept in a few smaller containers then fridged.  Not the best method because the cooling isn’t fast enough so I’ll just have to make sure that when I reheat later in the week, I bring it to boil for a few minutes to kill of any nasties.

So what can you do with a vegetable stock?  That’s another post altogether but here’s some suggestions.  You could cook a chicken breast in it with some pasta (crushed spaghetti works) into a chicken noodle soup.  You could dilute the stock and use it to poach a fish filet, topped with some ginger slices, topped with a splash of heated oil.  Or you could just throw in some chopped vegetables and make your own minestrone.  Or you could poach a chicken breast in the minestrone then top it with a dollop of basil pesto.  

Enjoy.

(sorry, no pics for this food post)

Sorry, no red wine braise tonight.  Tonight I tried something else because red wine was a tad boring and predictable.  OK I lied, I didn’t have an open bottle of red wine and didn’t want to spend too much money for dinner. 

Here’s a quick and simple recipe for Braised Short Ribs with Mushrooms.

Braised Short Ribs with Mushrooms served on garlic sweet potato mash

Ingredients:
Short Ribs (enough for 2)
Handful of button mushrooms, ripped to chunks
A few dried chinese mushrooms, soaked
One onion, finely chopped
Few cloves of garlic, chopped
Mushroom stock
One teaspoon of tomato paste
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh oregano
Truffle oil (optional)

When you pick your ribs, go for thicker slabs because they’re better for braising.  Starting with your short ribs, cut them into one bone pieces.  

Heat your pan with medium-high heat then add a little oil.  Sear each piece until they all have a nice dark brown crust.  Contrary to popular belief, this does not “seal” the meat but it gives the meat a nice, deeper flavor.  After it’s seared, remove and set aside.  You might need to do this in batches.

In the same pan, add the onion and let it sweat over lower heat.  Scrap the pan well to remove any tasty bits stuck while you seared.  Add both the mushrooms and the garlic then let them cook until slightly softened.

Put the short ribs back and mix well.  Add enough stock to cover about 3/4 of the pan’s contents.  I added the water I used to soak the chinese mushrooms because they were organic and pesticide-free.  If you’re not sure about yours, then don’t.  Add the herbs and the tomato paste and a little salt then mix it well.  If the liquid is bubbling, reduce the heat to low then cover.  Leave for about 20-30 minutes, depending on how much you have.

You know it’s ready when the sauce is thickened and the meat is tender.  Taste and add salt and pepper if you prefer.  Drizzle with a little truffle oil if it’s your liking.  If your sauce is still too watery, remove all the contents then boil the sauce to reduce it.  Serve with rice.  I served mine with a garlic sweet potato mash.

Enjoy.

What’s worst is that some of these bad ones are reviewed “favorably” by certain food reviewers.

I’m no culinary expert, just someone who loves his food passionately so in the light of sharing, I’ve finally mustered enough courage to say:

My favorite chicken rice stall in Singapore is Heng Ki Chicken Rice in Chinatown Market, #02-131.

There, I said it.

Better still, here’s a picture.

Heng Ki Chicken Rice

Let me tell you why it’s my favorite.  

Chicken rice has three main components – Chicken and rice (duh), and the chili.  A good plate of chicken rice absolutely has to do well in all three.  Before I go on to describe (and defend) why Heng Ki is good, let me first disclaim and say that Heng Ki’s chicken rice is unashamedly full-flavored.  If you’re looking for plain white meat with rice that merely tickles your taste buds, stop reading now.  Or if you belong to the health conscious group who constantly grumbles how unhealthy a dish this is, please go read some salad reviews.  The following is not for you.

You have been warned.

Let’s start with the chicken.  The chicken in most chicken rice is prepared in more or less the same way.  And I guess any other way other than boiled would just be odd.  But after it’s hacked up and served on plate, Heng Ki’s really shines.  The fowl is doused in a generous mixture of soy sauce and what looks like liquified chicken fat kept warm in a mini-slow cooker by the chopping board.  Now don’t underestimate what a soya sauce and chicken fat does in terms of flavor.  I’ve had chicken dressed from a range of oyster sauce to “rose-flavored” sauce.  I think that masks the flavor of the chicken more than enhancing it.  Back to Heng Ki, the meat itself is moist because it’s a little undercooked, which you can tell from the meat still a little red near the bones.  This is good because if it’s cooked thoroughly through, the meat will be tough and dry.  Moist and tender beats dry and tough any time.

The Rice.  I’ve had chicken rice rice that ranged from plain to overambitious.  Heng Ki’s rice is prepared pretty much the same way – rice with ginger, pandan leaves and the chicken broth after boiling the chicken.  They’ve added one extra ingredient.  Good guess – chicken fat.  The rice is oily, just like any decent chicken rice should be but not too oily.  You can detect the distinct aroma of chicken on the rice which really works for me.  And though a technicality, I also enjoy the fact they serve in bowls instead of plates.  It just feels a little more authentic shoving chunks of meat and rice into your mouth with chopsticks compared to arranging everything neatly onto spoons, but that’s just me.  By default, they serve you their 30 cents portion which I find a little too small, so if you’re a slightly bigger eater, ask for the large which costs 50 cents.  Or you could do what I do and order one large and one small for 80 cents.

The chili.  To me, this is the ultimate test for a good chicken rice because this is the ultimate differentiator that separates the mediocre from the divine.  To those who know me (yes, all three of you) will know that I’m not a big chili fan because I do prefer the original flavor of food rather than nuking it with heat.  Even for chicken rice, I tend to moderate my chili consumption to just have enough to give the meat a kick without overpowering the chicken.  Broadly speaking, there’s two types of chicken rice chili.  The first is plain spicy, and the second is spicy cut with a slight sourness with the addition of lime juice.  Heng Ki’s chili on the other hand, has three distinct flavors – spicy, sweet and sour.  The sweetness is not a background flavor, in fact I dare say it’s the first flavor to hit you before the spiciness and sour kicks in.  Breaking it down, it’s about 30% sweet, 50% spicy and 20% sour, in that order when you taste it.  The sour is not the citrus kind of sour, but from vinegar.  Eating it together with the salty, soya sauced chicken completes the spectrum of flavor that makes the Heng Ki offering so unique compared to the rest.

The prices are pretty reasonable too.  As above, the rice itself is 30 or 50 cents, and for half a chicken it’ll set you back $10.  The stall is open from 3 to 9pm, but by 7pm, they’re just about sold out for the day.  The stall is unassuming with no fancy lights or cut outs of newspaper reviews whatsoever and the best part, it’s run by three warm and friendly folks, unlike other chicken rice stalls which I shall not name here.  So if you’re ever in the area, do swing by and give it a try because if you made it to this part of the post, I’m sure you’ll like it as much as I do.

I flipped through the latest issue of Delicious this morning and found a recipe for Asian Roast Chicken which inspired me to try. I tweaked it a fair bit because from experience, this magazine’s recipes tend to be a little too rich and heavy for my liking.

I won’t post the recipe for copyright reasons, but the main flavors for the rub are lime, lemongrass, ginger, and boosted with a safe dose of five-spice powder.

My favorite part of this roast is the gravy which gets a spicy kick from a generous dollop of Thai red curry paste. It’s almost like a broth, which works really well with piping hot white rice.

So dinner tonight kinda looked like this:

Asian Roast Chicken